How does Team Rocket function, anyway?
Mar. 25th, 2006 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaTeam Rocket's pretty unknown despite all their involvement, generally functioning as the generic villains. The canon's pretty weird and inconsistent, and it really doesn't add up well.
#1 - Stealing pokemon.
This has never really made much sense to me. Poaching makes more sense (just think of how easy it'd be to get one of those damn RBY tauroses if you could just fight them normally...), but I suppose if one ignores the later attempts and goes by early show canon and common sense, stealing pokeballs containing pokemon without a fight might actually be a good idea. It's still rather questionable given how spotty canon is on how much strong pokemon matter and how hard or easy it is to raise them, but it might make some sense, especially if they focus on rare pokemon. It fits rather poorly with the fact grunts seem to all have standard common pokemon, though. Perhaps they're selling them.
Interestingly, despite this being the first thing that springs to mind, it's on shaky ground as it's purely show canon.
#2 - Steal valuables.
Less concrete but makes more sense. Gamewise you have the theft of the Dig TM and Silph Scope, plus the attempt made for the Masterball. All of these are pokemon-related, but then, pretty much everything in the game is. Plus their involvement with the Lavender Town cubone suggests they've out for money, as does their connection to the Celadon slot prizes. From this, it's reasonable to infer they might be stealing on a larger scale. Jesse and James' antics are pretty shaky evidence, but they do repeatedly attempt to steal interesting/rare/expensive things, so it's probably true Team Rocket deals in items as well.
Who are they stealing from, though? The problem is that for any large-scale organization, you'd be able to systematically hit pretty much everyone after a while. They'd clean out museums and then work their way through people's private collections. Possibly if they exist in a proportionally larger area, and if they resell the items regularly, they might be able to get around this, but they'd need a pretty large area to avoid rich collectors repeatedly encountering their own stolen items on the market.
So that requires a huge area and also that it not be a major facet of their business model.
#3 - Experiments
Both interesting and thematically fitting, but poorly explained. Funding and equipment are both pretty expensive. If #1 and #2 are productive, they might be able to generate enough cash to manage this, but that still begs the question of why.
It seems there's some expected return (Mewtwo, etc), but one wonders how much research would be tolerated without results, and also how large the facilities could be.
There's also manga canon, where they're developing new items. This is pretty reasonable, but not half so interesting as psychotic ditto monsters.
#4 - Caged pokemon
Canon, but weird. (Especially Giovanni building a whole glass tank for his kingler) Possibly for experience gained out of battle, but this would then come into conflict with the idea of pokemon aging (unless, of course, the pokeball stasis theory doesn't hold). Alternatively, it could be that pokemon are expected to be killed at some point rather than living a full life, making it a moot point.
Thematically nice, though.
#5 - Vast underground structures.
Canon. I'm not sure how much sense it makes, but possibly if certain pokemon are able to help (onix, for example) the cost might be more reasonable.
#6 - Bad lighting
Canon at times, unless my TV needs adjusting. Either this is just a standard thematic cliche or Giovanni felt the need to cut costs somewhere after blowing a few billion on Mewtwo. Really doesn't make sense.
#7 - Members
We only see age twenty-plus individuals involved, both gamewise and showwise. Even manga canon, to my limited knowledge. But game canon does have them recruiting younger trainers, so they should theoretically have a wide range of ages. Unless the guy on Nugget Bridge was really intending to just club you over the head and steal your pokemon, which I wouldn't put past him.
This might be explained by segmentation of units and assignments. A twelve year old trainer would probably find it easier to steal a painting from an old rich guy than pokemon from another trainer, so Team Rocket would probably find it easier to order the trainer to get the painting.
#8 - Infrastructure
There's the gym, of course, the base at Celadon, and theoretically there must be several other bases due to the fact Giovanni abandons the Celadon base without much preamble and manages to still mount a full-scale invasion of Silph Co later on. Possibly the gym doubles as the other base and so there are only two, but it seems pretty reasonable to assume there are a number, as Giovanni always seems to take the discovery/destruction of one pretty calmly. There might one in each area Team Rocket appears, so a minimum of five, plus one if gamewise Mewtwo had a Team Rocket connection. Johto might have only the two bases found, although it could easily have more.
At any rate, this would require a massive investment, although it would be feasible if they were disguised as legitimate buildings, as in part of a business.
#9 - Speaking of business...
It's pretty up in the air what the business model is. RBY-wise they control the game corner in Celadon, and are either poaching from the Safari Zone or else control that as well. They're also involved in whatever market the cubone skulls and slowpoke tails factor into and had a significant reach into Silph, possibly helping to fund certain research areas. In the show Giovanni's involved in a number of apparently harmless business ventures as well. How much is invested in any given area seems unclear, though.
It's impossible to say if Giovanni is focused primarily on making money, with the other areas subordinate to this goal, or if he's planning to create a super pokemon army to take over the world and needs money for that, or if he's really focused on amassing a vast store of pokemon and the research and money are to further that goal.
#10 – Units
You've got Jesse/James and Butch/Cassidy, plus the two I don't remember, but those both seem exceptions to the general trend (as well as a case of the anime being a bit too clever for its own good – come on, coed pairs?). Meanwhile there are massive numbers of black-outfitted grunts there to show up for large-scale events, such as the SS Anne and catching the tauros with Mewtwo.
So it seems the vast majority of Team Rocket is not paired. (As well as all identical, apparently cloned eyeless men…) Then there are a couple of single agents, as seen in Mewtwo Returns and the fourth movie, whatever it was called. It seems reasonable to assume there might be trios and so on, especially since anime canon sometimes treats Meowth as if he's getting his own separate paycheck. The addition of masses of others suggests there are also many who aren't in any particular group, as does the function of grunts in the game. Beyond that, there's really nothing clear.
#11 - Other work
Theoretically, there should be a lot of maintenance-style stuff going on. Someone has to feed the pokemon, chop tails off slowpoke, process cubone skulls, as well as keeping track of everyone else. And dealing with supplying them. There should be full-time trainers, grunts doing menial work for scientists, and assassins because all good fanfiction has assassins and frankly, there's no better explanation for why no one's figured out Giovanni controls Team Rocket yet. And someone needs to be cooking, keeping track of uniforms…come to think of it, many someones need to be working in a factory producing uniforms, unless Giovanni's ordering from a real store and just making liberal use of the assassins every time someone doesn't fall for the 'It's for Halloween costumes' line, which should be about every five minutes. Plus there's the building of the massive infrastructure, unless, again, we've got assassins swooping down for a kill every time some construction worker asks why they're building what appears to be a secret criminal hideout. Then there's the network of semi-legitimate agencies to foist stolen stuff off, and the network of legitimate agencies to run the real business ventures.
And you'd also need people to train the recruits. Even if we assume Team Rocket is very much a sink or swim kind of place, it'd be horribly inefficient to just hope kidnapped kids learn how to pick locks on their own. You might be able to make the older kids do it, but it wouldn't be as reliable.
Thoughts, anyone?
#1 - Stealing pokemon.
This has never really made much sense to me. Poaching makes more sense (just think of how easy it'd be to get one of those damn RBY tauroses if you could just fight them normally...), but I suppose if one ignores the later attempts and goes by early show canon and common sense, stealing pokeballs containing pokemon without a fight might actually be a good idea. It's still rather questionable given how spotty canon is on how much strong pokemon matter and how hard or easy it is to raise them, but it might make some sense, especially if they focus on rare pokemon. It fits rather poorly with the fact grunts seem to all have standard common pokemon, though. Perhaps they're selling them.
Interestingly, despite this being the first thing that springs to mind, it's on shaky ground as it's purely show canon.
#2 - Steal valuables.
Less concrete but makes more sense. Gamewise you have the theft of the Dig TM and Silph Scope, plus the attempt made for the Masterball. All of these are pokemon-related, but then, pretty much everything in the game is. Plus their involvement with the Lavender Town cubone suggests they've out for money, as does their connection to the Celadon slot prizes. From this, it's reasonable to infer they might be stealing on a larger scale. Jesse and James' antics are pretty shaky evidence, but they do repeatedly attempt to steal interesting/rare/expensive things, so it's probably true Team Rocket deals in items as well.
Who are they stealing from, though? The problem is that for any large-scale organization, you'd be able to systematically hit pretty much everyone after a while. They'd clean out museums and then work their way through people's private collections. Possibly if they exist in a proportionally larger area, and if they resell the items regularly, they might be able to get around this, but they'd need a pretty large area to avoid rich collectors repeatedly encountering their own stolen items on the market.
So that requires a huge area and also that it not be a major facet of their business model.
#3 - Experiments
Both interesting and thematically fitting, but poorly explained. Funding and equipment are both pretty expensive. If #1 and #2 are productive, they might be able to generate enough cash to manage this, but that still begs the question of why.
It seems there's some expected return (Mewtwo, etc), but one wonders how much research would be tolerated without results, and also how large the facilities could be.
There's also manga canon, where they're developing new items. This is pretty reasonable, but not half so interesting as psychotic ditto monsters.
#4 - Caged pokemon
Canon, but weird. (Especially Giovanni building a whole glass tank for his kingler) Possibly for experience gained out of battle, but this would then come into conflict with the idea of pokemon aging (unless, of course, the pokeball stasis theory doesn't hold). Alternatively, it could be that pokemon are expected to be killed at some point rather than living a full life, making it a moot point.
Thematically nice, though.
#5 - Vast underground structures.
Canon. I'm not sure how much sense it makes, but possibly if certain pokemon are able to help (onix, for example) the cost might be more reasonable.
#6 - Bad lighting
Canon at times, unless my TV needs adjusting. Either this is just a standard thematic cliche or Giovanni felt the need to cut costs somewhere after blowing a few billion on Mewtwo. Really doesn't make sense.
#7 - Members
We only see age twenty-plus individuals involved, both gamewise and showwise. Even manga canon, to my limited knowledge. But game canon does have them recruiting younger trainers, so they should theoretically have a wide range of ages. Unless the guy on Nugget Bridge was really intending to just club you over the head and steal your pokemon, which I wouldn't put past him.
This might be explained by segmentation of units and assignments. A twelve year old trainer would probably find it easier to steal a painting from an old rich guy than pokemon from another trainer, so Team Rocket would probably find it easier to order the trainer to get the painting.
#8 - Infrastructure
There's the gym, of course, the base at Celadon, and theoretically there must be several other bases due to the fact Giovanni abandons the Celadon base without much preamble and manages to still mount a full-scale invasion of Silph Co later on. Possibly the gym doubles as the other base and so there are only two, but it seems pretty reasonable to assume there are a number, as Giovanni always seems to take the discovery/destruction of one pretty calmly. There might one in each area Team Rocket appears, so a minimum of five, plus one if gamewise Mewtwo had a Team Rocket connection. Johto might have only the two bases found, although it could easily have more.
At any rate, this would require a massive investment, although it would be feasible if they were disguised as legitimate buildings, as in part of a business.
#9 - Speaking of business...
It's pretty up in the air what the business model is. RBY-wise they control the game corner in Celadon, and are either poaching from the Safari Zone or else control that as well. They're also involved in whatever market the cubone skulls and slowpoke tails factor into and had a significant reach into Silph, possibly helping to fund certain research areas. In the show Giovanni's involved in a number of apparently harmless business ventures as well. How much is invested in any given area seems unclear, though.
It's impossible to say if Giovanni is focused primarily on making money, with the other areas subordinate to this goal, or if he's planning to create a super pokemon army to take over the world and needs money for that, or if he's really focused on amassing a vast store of pokemon and the research and money are to further that goal.
#10 – Units
You've got Jesse/James and Butch/Cassidy, plus the two I don't remember, but those both seem exceptions to the general trend (as well as a case of the anime being a bit too clever for its own good – come on, coed pairs?). Meanwhile there are massive numbers of black-outfitted grunts there to show up for large-scale events, such as the SS Anne and catching the tauros with Mewtwo.
So it seems the vast majority of Team Rocket is not paired. (As well as all identical, apparently cloned eyeless men…) Then there are a couple of single agents, as seen in Mewtwo Returns and the fourth movie, whatever it was called. It seems reasonable to assume there might be trios and so on, especially since anime canon sometimes treats Meowth as if he's getting his own separate paycheck. The addition of masses of others suggests there are also many who aren't in any particular group, as does the function of grunts in the game. Beyond that, there's really nothing clear.
#11 - Other work
Theoretically, there should be a lot of maintenance-style stuff going on. Someone has to feed the pokemon, chop tails off slowpoke, process cubone skulls, as well as keeping track of everyone else. And dealing with supplying them. There should be full-time trainers, grunts doing menial work for scientists, and assassins because all good fanfiction has assassins and frankly, there's no better explanation for why no one's figured out Giovanni controls Team Rocket yet. And someone needs to be cooking, keeping track of uniforms…come to think of it, many someones need to be working in a factory producing uniforms, unless Giovanni's ordering from a real store and just making liberal use of the assassins every time someone doesn't fall for the 'It's for Halloween costumes' line, which should be about every five minutes. Plus there's the building of the massive infrastructure, unless, again, we've got assassins swooping down for a kill every time some construction worker asks why they're building what appears to be a secret criminal hideout. Then there's the network of semi-legitimate agencies to foist stolen stuff off, and the network of legitimate agencies to run the real business ventures.
And you'd also need people to train the recruits. Even if we assume Team Rocket is very much a sink or swim kind of place, it'd be horribly inefficient to just hope kidnapped kids learn how to pick locks on their own. You might be able to make the older kids do it, but it wouldn't be as reliable.
Thoughts, anyone?
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-29 02:08 am (UTC)hacking the sytem is TR's goal, thus giving something central to work around, rather than just an aimless 'TR does bad stuff, good people stop them' with no central goal or story direction.
If that makes sense.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-30 03:45 am (UTC)